{"id":25344,"date":"2018-12-13T02:23:21","date_gmt":"2018-12-13T02:23:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=25344"},"modified":"2018-12-13T02:23:21","modified_gmt":"2018-12-13T02:23:21","slug":"netanyahus-adviser-accused-of-sexual-assault-resigns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=25344","title":{"rendered":"Netanyahu\u2019s adviser accused of sexual assault resigns"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nTUNIS:\u00a0After four years working \u201cunder fire\u201d and interviewing almost 50,000 witnesses, Tunisia\u2019s commission tasked with serving justice to victims of half a century of dictatorship is poised to submit its recommendations.<\/p>\n

\nSet up in 2014 following the 2011 revolution and in the wake of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali\u2019s fall, the Truth and Dignity Institute has a mission to \u201creveal the truth about the human rights violations\u201d in Tunisia between 1955 and 2013.<\/p>\n

\nIn its final act, the commission will submit its recommendations to Tunisia\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n

\nThe first version is to be delivered at a public event on Friday and Saturday, before the full report is submitted by Dec. 31.<\/p>\n

\nThe government, with the assistance of a parliamentary follow-up committee, will have one year to draw up an action plan based on the recommendations.<\/p>\n

\nThe commission\u2019s task was to collect and disseminate testimonies, send some of those suspected of rape, murder, torture or corruption to specialised courts, and recommend measures to prevent any recurrence.<\/p>\n

\nOperating in the only Arab Spring country which has kept to a democratic path since the 2011 revolt, its mandate has also been to seek national reconciliation through a revival of the North African state\u2019s collective memory.<\/p>\n

\nThe commission, whose mandate was extended in the spring until the end of 2018, has been studying more than 60,000 complaints and has this year sent dozens of cases to the courts.<\/p>\n

\nOver the past four years, the panel has heard harrowing testimony from victims of torture in jail, some of which has been aired to large television audiences.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cFrom the very start we\u2019ve worked under fire and come up against difficulties, due to the absence of political will,\u201d commission official Khaled Krichi told AFP.<\/p>\n

\nHe said demands for the handover of judicial cases involving corruption had been rejected, as well as for archive materials from the Interior Ministry on prisoners who had suffered torture.<\/p>\n

\nA contested amnesty law passed in 2017 cleared some officials suspected of administrative corruption.<\/p>\n

\nThe commission also faced political resistance with the return of former regime leaders to power, internal disputes as well as the lack of cooperation by state institutions.<\/p>\n

\nThirteen specialized courts have been set up and started work at the end of May on dozens of cases submitted by the commission.<\/p>\n

\nTwenty trials are underway, mostly of victims of the 2011 revolution and of radical and leftist opposition figures tortured under the rule of Ben Ali or his predecessor Habib Bourguiba.<\/p>\n

\nKrichi said settlements have been reached in 10 cases of financial corruption involving former regime figures, including that of Slim Chiboub, a son-in-law of Ben Ali, who has agreed to pay back 307 million dinars ($113 million).<\/p>\n

\nThe state, however, faced with accusations of torture and sexual violence, has rejected 1,000 demands for \u201creconciliation\u201d with the victims. A row has also broken out over compensation cases, with members of Parliament claiming the costs would bankrupt the state and that many claims were designed to benefit supporters of extremist movement Ennahdha.<\/p>\n

\nAt the end of November, the commission drew up criteria for compensation that exclude those with post-2011 government or parliamentary posts.<\/p>\n

\nAround 25,000 people are eligible to compensation from the Al-Karama (Dignity) Fund established in 2014, according to Krichi.<\/p>\n

\nIt is being financed by donations, a percentage of the funds recovered through settlements and a one-time government grant of 10 million dinars ($3.7 million).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TUNIS:\u00a0After four years working \u201cunder fire\u201d and interviewing almost 50,000 witnesses, Tunisia\u2019s commission tasked with serving justice to victims of half a century of dictatorship is poised to submit its recommendations. Set up in 2014 following the 2011 revolution and in the wake of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali\u2019s fall, the Truth and Dignity…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":25345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25344","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}